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Fringe Benefits is an educational theatre company dedicated to early hate crime prevention. Our mission is to replace hate with understanding through collaboratively created plays, videos and programs that promote constructive dialogue about diversity and discrimination issues. We are committed to opening hearts and minds and promoting progressive action around a wide array of social justice issues including racism, sexism, classism, ableism, ageism, and immigration rights. In honor of our first community collaborators, homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) youth, and in light of the ongoing need to ensure that they feel included, valued and safe, Fringe Benefits gives special attention to LGBTQ+ issues. We believe that it is imperative for disenfranchised communities to come together, listen to each other’s concerns, stories and ideas, and work together to frame their/our own narratives. Working together, we stand a better chance of being heard and heeded. Our goal is to create a context in which people can turn their damaging experiences with discrimination into art that promote respect, inclusion and justice.
Contact: Norma Bowles, Artistic Director
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| Youth and teaching artists of our “Join Forces & Create Change!” Theatre for Social Justice Residency with Southeast Middle School and Southeast DREAMS Magnet and the Irpin Humanitarian Lyceum in Ukraine. The youth collaborated sharing stories, emails and videos about their experiences in school, in their communities and online. Based on these exchanges, our local residency youth then created an original play, “It’s Up to Us!” about the destructive impact of discrimination, cyberbullying, isolation, deportation, gun violence and war. The youth also worked together to create advocacy and philanthropic projects addressing some of those issues. Our “Join Forces and Create Change!”residency, provided our youth with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build thoughtful, empowering connections with peers near and far, and to make positive difference in each other’s lives and in the world at large. |  |
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